Thursday’s meeting between Major League Baseball and MLB Players Association lasted just 15 short minutes, and with the clock ticking to start the 2022 season on time, still, no deal has been made.
According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, the MLBPA back off its request for arbitration for all players with 2-plus years of service. Instead, players requested that 80 percent of players with two-plus years of service go into the system. (MLB’s current standing is that just 22 percent of players with two-plus years of service get this additional year of arbitration, where the player can make more money. These are known as Super 2s.)
They also requested an increase in its pre-arbitration bonus pool, requesting that it be raised from $100 million to $115 million. Yahoo Sports‘ Hannah Keyser expanded on this, stating that as a result, the top WAR players who would be eligible would expand from 30 players to 150 players. So that’s a larger group of players splitting a little bit more money than the players originally counteroffered.
As Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweeted, the big question that still remains will be the competitive balance tax and MLB’s proposal to raise penalties for going over the tax. Whether or not a deal is reached could come down to that negotiation. With the CBT, MLB is trying to trade draft pick compensation for a tougher competitive balance tax.
After the meetings were finished, according to ESPN‘s Joon Lee, Dan Halem of MLB and Bruce Meyer of the MLBPA met and had an additional 20-minute conversation regarding today’s meeting and the current standing of the negotiations. The meeting was described as “candid,” according to a Janes source, and both parties seemed “calm” upon departing the meetings.
Pitchers and catchers were scheduled to report this week. With negotiations continuing to spiral and not make progress, it appears as though this spring will consist of mainly minor league camps and no organized games.
